Of Water And Wings
by EnvyTheEnding
Summary: Season 7 spoilers!   Set during the time Sam and Dean have retreated back to the cabin to wait out their injuries and lay low, this tells of a day when a story on the news catches Sam's attention... for the worst possible reason.


"_Dean_," Sam's voice was quiet and full of disbelief as he said his brother's name, intending to get his attention as the words fell before they got to him. The television in the cabin didn't get many stations; most of them were Spanish, and Sam could only stand so many telenovellas, so when he finally got his hands on the remote he found the closest thing to news he could. Few things bothered him more than being so isolated from the world around him.

Dean was trying to catch up on some sleep in the bedroom when Sam happened upon a local station showing some news footage, though the audio kept breaking and there was static on the screen. It took Sam a few moments to realize what he was looking at, and a few more to figure out how to make his vocal cords work again.

"Dean!" There wasn't a television in any of the other rooms or else Sam wouldn't have called for Dean to come to him. But this wasn't something he could just walk in there and tell him, this was something he had to see for himself.

"What?" Came the agitated reply from the bedroom.

"Dean, you really need to come in here and see this." There was a pit in Sam's stomach, a knot tighter than anything else he had ever experienced.

"Sammy, if you're making me walk more on this damn cast someone better be dying or naked," Dean's snarky reply came from the bedroom, but shuffling was heard soon thereafter. After a few thumps down the wooden floorboards, Dean hobbled into the living room.

"So where' the fire-" he started, but look on his younger brother's face stopped his sarcasm dead. Instead, Dean turned his attention to the television, which still held Sam's full attention.

"-_is being drained after security cameras showed a breaking and entering involving possible contamination of the reservoir." _The voice of the female newscaster spoke over the whir of helicopter blades with the view on the television showing the very water Castiel seemed to dissolve into mere days before. The water was almost completely gone, exposing the unnatural grey concrete bottom of the body of water which was, in fact, contaminated by the Leviathans. The news had that much right for once.

Neither brother spoke as the camera remained trained on the concrete basin, one question hanging heavily between them - was there a body to find? None of them talked about that moment after it happened. Dean folded up Cas's trench coat, put it in the back of the Impala, and they left it at that. Sam, Dean, and Bobby all knew that they couldn't answer the questions they had, so why bother talking about them when all it would do is cause strife? But now they were back and suddenly very real.

What happened to Castiel? Was he consumed by the Leviathan? Did they explode his vessel? Or would the draining of the reservoir provide a body as evidence?

Sam looked back at Dean but there was no diverting the older brother's attention from the television now. Dean's hands gripped the kitchen chair he was leaning against for support causing his knuckles to go white without him even noticing.

As the last of the water was drained from the middle of the reservoir, Sam and Dean knew what the picture on the television was before the reporter even realized something was wrong. Sam could feel his heart tighten, his breath catch in his throat, and as he turned again and started to say "Dean-" his brother had already turned and started back towards the bedroom without saying a word.

"_And what you're seeing now is… well, I'm not quite sure what that is. There appears to be some sort of stain on the bottom of the… I'm being told it's some sort of black residue at the bottom of the reservoir that appears to look like a pair of black wings. Whether this is some sort of graffiti or the contamination that was suspected earlier, we're not entirely sure yet…" _


End file.
